Neural Networks, AI and the Future of Art: An Interview with Art Collective CROSSLUCID

What is natural? What is unnatural? Why do we often consider technologies unnatural? Is not everything that exists in this world natural to some extent? This drive to define what’s “natural” and what’s not is as old as early modernism. However, the natural and the unnatural are not fixed terms but rather emerge as shifting formations of matter and meaning.

As humans tend to put themselves in the centre of their worldview, they define everything that lies outside their understanding, which they can’t make sense of, as unnatural. CROSSLUCID reconstructs these ideas by blurring the line between humans and technology to demonstrate that nothing is inherently as it seems.

Co-founded in 2018 by Sylwana Zybura and Tomas Toth, Berlin-based artistic collective CROSSLUCID follows a symbiotic approach between humans and machines to explore possible emerging futures. By accessing unknown landscapes generated by neural networks and AI, the collective investigates possible realities to introduce new linguistics, realities, rituals and ways of connecting with each other. This exploration often lands in the fields of intimacy and sexuality, the networked self and spirituality.

Hello CROSSLUCID. Could you tell us how you both met and decided to work together?

Hi GATA! Nice to meet you. We met in London and we spontaneously contacted each other, since we were following each other’s work. After working in London’s fashion industry for a while, we figured that our connection was way more powerful than the fast-paced production of images that's central to this industry. There is not much space in fashion to communicate multi-layered messages. It doesn’t necessarily allow for deeper meaning. So, at some point, we decided to move to Berlin and shift to a more refined communication which allows us to convey multi-layered ideas and critical messages.

What are the central subjects you’re dealing with in your work? And how did they evolve?

Our practice formula right now covers three main concepts: Sexuality & intimacy, the evolving self and spirituality and sense-making. In our current world reality system, those topics require certain healing. Our mission is to develop toward the healing of metaphysics. We need to redefine how we think and tell each other stories around those themes. How we reflect on ourselves in general, how we’re brought up to see ourselves in a certain way.

We recently started to reflect a lot on spirituality. In recent times, the topics’ prevailed linguistics and its current space in society have been an obstacle for many to approach it. Looking at art for example, spirituality has been completely denied. To such an extent that artists’ own statements on that theme have been removed.

What is spirituality according to you?

I would call it "the shimmer." It’s finding those magical moments on the fringe of reality. Something that not everyone sees. And ultimately dealing with what cannot be put into words. It’s clearly not individual, but essentially communal. On the other hand spirituality for us is something completely disconnected from religion. Those imposed ideas and obligations feel dated and not enchanting, so we completely excluded this idea of spirituality.

Spirituality, sexuality and the self seem deeply rooted in the connection to nature and physical human connection. How can those topics be translated into the digital realm?

By finding the glitch that has been eliminated from our lived reality. It’s difficult to experience the glitch. It became almost undesirable. Everything needs to be understandable, clear, sterile. It needs to have a name and a unit number. Whatever is not inside the spectrum of what’s definable, doesn’t exist in our system.

Neural networks and artificial intelligence however are so early in their development that they are full of potential glitches. There are layers of really unknown spaces and undecipherable code, which even the data alchemists can’t make sense of. Exactly those spaces are the ones, that are extremely exciting.

For our work Osmotic Passage (2021) for instance, we worked together with two data alchemist, teaching neural networks pre-Abrahamic symbolism from cultures all over the world. The material the networks produced was surprisingly fresh visually. Based on those outcomes, we started sculpting different iterations of the symbols in VR.

So together with AI we were able to create new spiritual symbolism. Isn’t that beautiful? It felt like dwelling into ancient knowledge, dissected by the brain of some otherworldly species.

On your website, it says: "Collective prototyping emerging futures." Could you explain to us what does this mean?

The word prototyping already includes the idea of testing and trying out. It is an assemblage of sorts. Something that is put together temporarily with the ability to shift and mould very easily. Reality is exactly like that. It is something that is formable and has the potential to eventually become what we want it to be. The other version of it is building, and building requires plans and methods, which can only derive from spaces that are already known. They are safe. Our work is about going into the unknown without the limitations of the human brain, societal beliefs and the fear of judgement.

“Our mission is to develop toward the healing of metaphysics. We need to redefine how we think and tell each other stories around those themes. ”

— cross lucid

How does technology play a role in your practice?

We see technology not as something "other", but something that’s very much embedded in our biosphere, allowing us to interact with and learn from it. Neural networks and AI systems are merely algorithms which are based on data sets we feed them with. So, in the end, they mirror our knowledge and behaviour. This also means that it really matters what we feed into the algorithmic systems because this is what we get back and what we build our learnings on.

With the help of the neural network systems, we connect things that the human mind would never put together to see how they interact with each other. Even with all the knowledge available, the human mind is limited. Yet, there is a vast and open landscape of scenarios accessible through this technology. If we trust the systems and let them run, we will eventually be able to explore those landscapes, learn from them and infuse our reality with unforeseeable solutions. Isn’t this exciting?

You are currently working on your feature film TRANSLUCID. Could you tell us a bit more about what’s behind the name, the origin and the concept of this project?

TRANSLUCID is a feature film set up as a sci-fi documentary of the future. It follows a non-linear storytelling, akin to lucid dreaming. Live-action scenes, performances, and themes created with artificial intelligence and fully digitally created realities are coming together as a whole, yet all capsules can stand alone as individual experiences. A network of different experiences.

Central to the film is sense-making and the sensitivity of various ways of reality reading. Re-enchantment of the world, of spaces, also mental spaces, of connections. It’s a hive mind incorporating not only us, but also artificial intelligences. Several scenes will be developed in Unreal Engine (a game engine). This means that the audience can not only watch the film but also participate in it. It’s a playable environment which gives the viewer the chance to explore and interact with parts of the scenes. Yet, for another capsule, we are working on an algorithmic ritual with a choreographer and a group of contemporary dancers. The process of this ritual will constitute the film, whilst the ritual itself will become a performance.

“It’s finding those magical moments on the fringe of reality. Something that not everyone sees. And ultimately dealing with what cannot be put into words. ”

— Crosslucid

What does the name TRANSLUCID stand for?

Transitional periods of time and the fluidity of transformation. Since you’re working on a film, were there any movies you’ve watched that inspired you to tap into filmmaking? Some main influences for our current work are Matthew Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle, Stalker by Tarkovsky, Un Lac by Philippe Grandrieux, Na Srebrnym Globie by Žulawski, Koyaanisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio, The Holy Mountain by Jodorowsky, Cemetery by Carlos Cassas and Kinetta by Lanthimos.